MUMM May 9
MUMM (the MIT-located version of UMMM) takes place this Saturday, May 9. Here's the schedule:
| 11:00 |
Emily Elfner |
Harmonic Serialism and stress-epenthesis
interactions in Levantine Arabic |
| 11:45 |
Bronwyn Bjorkman (MIT) |
Uniform exponence and reduplication: evidence from Kinande |
| 12:30 |
Patrick Jones (MIT) |
The evidence for the phonological stem in Kinande |
| 1:15-2:30 |
lunch |
| 2:30 |
Anne Pycha (Penn/UMass) |
The role of acoustic shape in phonological grammar: evidence from eye tracking |
| 3:15 |
Hyesun Cho (MIT) |
The problem of generalization in a statistical learning model of phonotactics |
| 4:00 |
break |
| 4:30 |
Brian Smith (UMass) |
The null parse in Harmonic Grammar |
| 5:15 |
Karen Jesney (UMass) |
Licensing in Optimality Theory and Harmonic Grammar |
Talks are 30 mins, followed by 10 mins discussion, 5 mins walking about.
[Thanks John!]
Annual Department Mini-Conference May 14
The annual Second-Year Mini-Conference takes place on Thursday, May 14, in Dickinson 110, from 9:30-12:00.
| 9:30 |
Coffee |
| 10:00 |
Emerson Loustau |
Aspect, agentive agreement, and i-level predicates in Mohawk |
| 10:30 |
Anisa Schardl |
Variable unaccusativity |
| 11:00 |
Chloe Gu |
Maximization in Mandarin wh-conditionals |
| 11:30 |
Noah Constant |
Variations in contrastive topic marking – evidence from Mandarin Chinese |
Majors Dinner May 12
This year, the Linguistics department has a record fifteen majors graduating! The department is hosting a dinner in their honor starting at 5:30 pm on May 12, in the department lounge (third floor of South College). All are welcome; RSVPs to Rajesh would be much appreciated.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
Lisa Selkirk's Retirement Party May 22
On May 22, starting at 7:00 pm, we'll celebrate Lisa Selkirk's retirement with a dinner party at John McCarthy and Ellen Woolford's place (37 Shattuck Rd, Hadley). Please let Kyle know if you can't make it. (We'll assume you're coming unless we hear from you.)
(There is parking along Shattuck Road, and at the curb on Gooseberry Lane, which is the cul-de-sac on the left, just past their house.)
[Thanks Kyle!]
Lisa Selkirk to be Honored at CHFA Event
At the HFA end-of-semester event on Tuesday, May 12, 3:00 pm, in the Studio Arts Building, there will be recognition of retiring faculty members, including our own Lisa Selkirk. (The others are Roger Rideout of Music, Julian Olf of Theater, and Michael Thelwell of Afro-Am.)
[Thanks John!]
A Linguist at the Undergrad Research Conference
The 15th Annual Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference took place on Friday, May 1, here at UMass Amherst. It seems that there was just one linguistics presentation: Jennifer Kelleher (a Spanish major) presented 'Exploring conceptualization through interpreters'.
Chris Potts at the LSA Executive Committee Meeting
Chris Potts heads to his first LSA Executive Committee meeting this weekend. The meeting runs all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday (May 9-10). Please drop him a note if there are any questions, concerns, or complaints that you'd like to have him try to raise with the rest of the EC.
The Supremes Unanimously Side With the Linguists
On May 4, the Supreme Court reached a decision in the case of the adverbial modifier. Here's a Language Log post by Jason Merchant that provides background on the case. And here's Jason's follow-up; "all nine justices agree with the linguists!"
Linguists Tom Ernst, Georgia Green, Jeffrey Kaplan, and Sally McConnell-Ginet filed an amici curiae brief, on the side of truth, of course.
